ITTA BENA, Miss.–You may remember the plane crash in 2017 in a field near Itta Bena that killed 15 Marines and a Navy corpsman. Now an engineer who was based at Warner Robins Air Force Base in Georgia has been arrested on charges of obstruction of justice and impeding the investigation into the crash.
A news release from the Dept. of Justice says James Michael Fisher, 67, was arrested Tuesday. He was a logistics engineer at the time of the crash.
Investigators with the Dept. of Justice believe he hid documents that showed his engineering decisions led to the crash.
It was determined after the crash that a piece of the propeller broke off and flew into the fuselage of the plane, which was transporting the Marines from North Carolina to California. The plane broke into pieces and crashed in the field.
Fisher, who now lives in Portugal, faced a judge this week in a federal court in Jacksonville, Florida.
He faces a possible 20-year sentence if he’s convicted.
